NYPD cop's firing the start of justice, not the end, say Eric Garner's supporters

Fallout over Eric Garner's death won't end with the firing of an NYPD officer considered by the department most responsible for causing it, relatives and supporters of the Staten Island man said Monday.

Joined by advocates, Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, said Officer Daniel Pantaleo's firing Monday by Police Commissioner James O'Neill represents only the beginning of renewed efforts to see additional cops held accountable who were involved in the 2014 confrontation that ended the Staten Island man's life.

"We're not finished. We have other officers that we have to go after. You have heard the names. We know the wrongdoing that they have done," Carr said Monday in lower Manhattan at a rally outside NYPD headquarters. "Show the pictures, say the names. Do the roll call, because they all need to lose their jobs."

In two rallies at opposite ends of Manhattan, Garner's family and supporters described the officer's firing as bittersweet and an impetus for change.

"We're not here today for a victory lap. We're not here today to sing a celebratory song," said Kirsten John Foy, an activist and advocate for Garner's family since his death, at the rally. 

"We're not here today to pat a system on the back that's done only what was expected of it — and did so five years later," Foy said, flanked by Garner's family and supporters.

They listed demands not met more than five years after Pantaleo and other officers took Garner down on a Staten Island street when he resisted efforts to arrest him for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

Among the demands: the unsealing of the 2014 secretive proceedings on Staten Island that ended without Pantaleo's indictment, the firing of the other officers, and the passage of a years-stalled city law banning police chokeholds.

Activists read off the names and held up photos of each of at least five other officers involved in the July 17, 2014 confrontation with Garner, noting that only Pantaleo has been disciplined, and just one other cop, supervising Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, has a disciplinary case pending, with no timeline or details of that case publicly released. Among the officers' names read at the rally was Justin D'Amico, Pantaleo's partner, who testified at the now-fired officer's disciplinary proceedings earlier this year about filing a false report accusing Garner, after his death, of the felony of selling 10,000 cigarettes.

"Yeah, Pantaleo, you may have lost your job, but I lost a son!" Carr said at the rally. "You cannot replace that! You can get another job, maybe at Burger King."

Because of state civil service law requiring discipline within 18 months of an incident, the other officers can be charged only under limited circumstances.

At a Harlem rally, the Rev. Al Sharpton, an adviser to the Garner family, said he wants a law banning chokeholds by the police. The practice is banned under decades-old NYPD rules, but a City Council bill, introduced in 2014, would criminalize the use of chokeholds. Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, wants the bill reconsidered and passed.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he would veto such a bill, because it could jeopardize an officer battling a “perpetrator in the death struggle.”

Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Queens), the bill's prime sponsor, noted that New York State has long carved out a self-defense exception to accusations of criminal conduct — which wouldn't change under his chokehold-ban bill.

The activists also want details of the 2014 criminal proceedings against Pantaleo — a grand jury led by the borough’s district attorney. Grand jury proceedings are secret under state law, a position affirmed in 2015 by the state’s highest court, in a six-word decision.

At the police headquarters rally, Garner’s supporters said they were not demoralized by five years of setbacks, welcoming Carr by singing a song inspired by her son's dying words: “I can’t breathe. Calling out the violence of these racist police. We ain’t gonna stop until our people are free.”

With Maya Rajamani 

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.